Art Decay Quotes

Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.

The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.

One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is the intermixing of different genres.

The names of great painters are like passing-bells: in the name of Velasquez you hear sounded the fall of Spain; .in the name of Titian, that of Venice; in the name of Leonardo, that of Milan; in the name of Raphael, that of Rome. And there is profound justice in this, for in proportion to the nobleness of the power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or vile; and hitherto the greater the art, the more surely has it been used, and used solely, for the decoration of pride or the provoking of sensuality.

One of the most striking signs of the decay of art is when we see its separate forms jumbled together.

The idea of a detached art, of poetry as a charm which exists only to distract our leisure, is a decadent idea and an unmistakable symptom of our power to castrate.

Geometry is moribund. I want a lilt and joy to art.

As art sinks into paralysis, artists multiply. This anomaly ceases to be one if we realize that art, on its way to exhaustion, has become both impossible and easy.

Detail is the heart of realism, and the fatty degeneration of art.